Poem of the week: The Cuckoo Song

Carol Rumens Monday 30 May 2011- The Guardian

This jolly 13th-century poem is made all the better for not having its old spellings translated into modern English

Feel good hit of the sumer ... The Cuckoo Song was all the rage in 1260

The 13th-century round known as the Reading Rota or, more informally, The Cuckoo Song, isn't about the approach of summer, but its arrival. "Sumer is icumen in" is frequently mistranslated, but "icumen" means it has come, as the presence of the cuckoo implies, and it's here, nu (now). Summer, that is. If this thought is nu to you, if your bank holiday skies are grey, and cold raindrops falling down your neck, you might not be in the mood for such a loud, sweet, jolly Poem of the Week.

On the other hand, The Cuckoo Song could cheer you up. Especially if you can find a group of people to sing it with you – in a gorgeous West Country accent.

There are numerous versions in print and online: here's a rather nice one. The variations between the different modern texts available are small, and mostly connected to the decisions made by later editors confronted by 13th-century orthography. I don't know why different editors modernise different words: perhaps they're guided by assumptions about their readers' understanding. Nevertheless, which version you happen to discover first can make quite a difference to the way you savour the poem. For instance, doesn't "lhude" sound ruder and louder than the "loude" some editors prefer? And "murie" seems worlds away from "merry". The old spelling pushes your lips and tongue to a different pronunciation, while charming your eye with an unfamiliar pattern of letters that has nothing in common with the cliches of "Merry Christmas" or "Merrie England".

Full piece.